Finding IT's true value

With 5,600 stores, True Value tracks a lot of data, both in-house and in the field. The retailer-owned wholesale co-op, with 2007 revenue estimated at $2 billion, provides marketing support and buying power to members and sells them equipment and inventory. Ms. Weber, CIO since 2003, has the dual challenge of keeping technology current and co-op members connected.

As a wholesaler, we're all about buying and selling products. We have 70,000 SKUs, meaning items, that we offer and carry in our warehouses. That's a lot of information to manage.

Over the years we haven't had the greatest flexibility in categorizing and defining those items. Things like color and size are part of the product description rather than discrete data elements, so we can't see, for instance, that blue is selling better than black, or whatever.

We also don't have a good way of integrating the point-of-sale data that we capture from retailers. In April, we're planning to implement a new system that will change that. This new technology, called an enterprise merchandising system, or EMS, not only will let us better track and manage inventory, it also will give us more flexibility to price our products competitively.

Right now, we have national pricing, which means our retailers buy products from us at one price that's locked in across the nation. If we have a product that we source locally, say bags of potting soil, and there's a price increase in one locale for this product, then we have to raise prices across the nation, which would be penalizing stores elsewhere.

Our retailers don't have to buy their inventory from us. They can purchase from other suppliers. So we want to be able to react to local competition and commodity price changes and then pass along the savings to retailers in those regions.

The other big project we've been working on and just implemented is a simplified ordering system for retailers. In addition to the inventory replenishment orders that they place weekly, retailers can buy products through various promotions that we offer  bargains of the month and that sort of thing.

But, as new promotions were developed, we ended up with something like 15 different ways to order. When you looked at all the ordering instructions, it was quite a tome. And those special promotions weren't captured in retailer systems like the regular orders were, so it was easy to lose track of what had been ordered.

Now there's just one method for ordering through special promotions, and the data is processed through the same system as weekly orders. Retailers also now can choose from staggered delivery windows, which helps them manage inventory and cash flow and lets them get seasonal products at the best time for their region. For instance, spring comes earlier in the Southeast than in the Northeast.

We want to make it easy for members to do business with us. Plus, whatever we can do to improve our operating efficiency ultimately ends up in their pockets.